Passenger front rotor/wheel hot. Stuck caliper?

You just use a pair of channel locks to squeeze the caliper down If you can't squeeze the caliper down with slip joint pliers simply call channel locks in America you have a problem I can almost squeeze the pistons down in my front calipers with my bare thumbs . No kidding. And slide pins or the caliper bar should pull across with your pinky or middle finger without applying your whole body weight behind it to move the slide pins back and forth If not pop that mess off clean them with carb spray and a little bit of crocus cloth commonly called sandpaper for metal spray it off again wipe it regrease it with the proper brake grease You can get into a whole another hullabaloo about that too but it really doesn't matter You don't grease the brake pads in the rotors. Brakes of this type are similar on Corolla Camry matrix etc not a real big difference in calipers and pistons and rotors very similar All that stuff should be very inexpensive to deal with and it sounds like most of it will be just greasing slides or replacing pins and in this day and age you would just replace the caliper it's probably cheaper If you're way out in the country or in the Australian bush you can pop the caliper out clean the mess up again with your metal sandpaper buy some new rubbers It's like a piston ring made out of rubber for the piston in the brakes lube that up with brake fluid and push it all back together Not really much to it but these days are remand caliper locally is only about 20 bucks That's without the bracket and all. But yes all of that should pretty much move by hand You should need any hydraulics and what have you to make this stuff move when you push your piston in after you sand the boar clean up the piston and add a new rubber and some brake fluid as lubricant you should be able to push that right back into its hole with your fingers. Then you should be able to rotate your wheel around and around and backwards and all that with just one hand on the tire wax on wax off.

 

Sounds like you sure enough have a stuck caliper.

You can buy a caliper rebuild kit from the dealer (includes all the rubber and miscellaneous bits for both calipers, plus a little packet of the correct grease).

If you're sure the caliper you've got is original, you'll probably end up with a better caliper if you rebuild that one than if you throw on a cheap reman. (Then you'll get your core charge back when you turn in your original caliper, which will end up getting excessively sandblasted, rebuilt with cheesy parts, and appearing on a store shelf somewhere as a cheap reman.)

More on that subject here. Includes how to check that the caliper piston properly returns when you're not braking. This is worth checking on a store-bought reman caliper before even installing it ... one I bought did not, right out of the box.

Also describes how to search for a caliper from Toyota's reman parts program. Those are good, but they're not always available.

 

There are 4 reasons why a single (disc) brake is dragging.
1) the brake pads are seized in the caliper bracket.
2) the piston is seized in the caliper.
3) the slide pins are seized in the caliper bracket.
4) the caliper can't release because brake fluid is trapped (usually a faulty brake hose).

I begin by lifting and supporting the car. Then remove the wheel, and open the bleeder screw to see if relieving any pressure releases the brake. If so then replace both front brake hoses.

If not then disassemble things until you find the problem.

Seized pads are the "easiest" fix. Seized pins sometimes require replacement brackets.

A seized piston usually means the caliper should be replaced. It can take lots to extract the piston (which will be damaged), then the bore is also likely damaged (corroded).

I might put a kit in a ($$) caliper that has a bad dust boot - IF the piston looks good. Anything else gets replaced.

Now I absolutely loath cheap reman calipers (say it with me kiddies... "A1 - Cardone" The devil himself). I've spent way too much of my life dicking around with bad parts. The only caliper I'd get for my cars now is Toyota from the dealer.

When it's all apart, look at the pads and rotors. Maybe they're ok, maybe they overheated (and the pads are "cooked" or the rotor warped).

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